This year, Thanksgiving day marked the start of our vacation too so it is doubly nice. On Thanksgiving morning, we got up and hit the road by 7:30 to drive to Indianapolis to have Thanksgiving with my family. We had never been to my brother's house (he's lived there for over a year) so we were SUPER excited!!! Of course, traveling with two kids always adds a little excitement. About an hour into the trip we got to experience our first bout of carsickness . .. . poor Joshua is all I'll say. Luckily we had extra clothes and lots of wet wipes. That was, thankfully, the only excitement in our entire trip!!! Well, except for the fact that I made two wrong turns in the last 1 mile of the trip WITH the GPS yelling at me telling me which way to go! LOL
My brother, Jeff and his family are fabulous hosts. They have unofficially won the honor of hosting Thanksgiving from now on :-) It was so nice to be able to just sit and chat with them while the Grandparents entertained the children!! They have a beautiful home (my sister-in-law has a knack for decorating on a budget and having it look like a magazine showroom).
Jeff was in charge of dinner (his choice) and I must say - he made the best turkey I've ever tasted in my entire life. It was so flavorful and moist. If he'll share his recipe for me to use on the turkey in my freezer, I promise to share :-) They also made some incredible corn on the cob - wow, I need that recipe too!!!
We headed back home that evening - have you ever noticed that the drive home seems to take twice as long even though the actual time is the same? Wow, that was one long drive - but it really wasn't bad! Both kids zonked and went right to bed when we got home.
Here's a few pictures :
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| The table before we ate - Brittany and Brandon made the Pilgrim hats :-) |
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| The adults minus Brandon who was taking the photo |
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| The kid table - I just loved seeing Josh sitting at that table with his cousins. He LOVED Kate and "talked" to her the whole time. And I promise, Nate is here - but he was sitting in a booster on the floor next to me so he missed the pictures!! |
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| Brittany and Brandon - they are awesome! |
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| Two of my three brothers and their wives - Ken and Lynnette and Jeff and Nora. Somehow we never got a picture with all of us. |
A couple of things I "wish" - I wish I would have taken more pictures - I actually stole these from my sister-in-law because I haven't downloaded mine yet but I didn't take a dinner table photo or get photos of all the adults together or even a huge group shot. When you have little kids - your focus tends to turn to them to make sure they are doing ok instead of remembering to take photos!! And I wish I could have eaten more food LOL
We also played this awesome skit! You should print it and save it for next year - it really was a lot of fun.
A few other things from our weekend. On Friday we did a few things around the house before heading to the Grandparents house. We had planned to go to Crossroads Village but the weather turned frigid and taking two munchkins out didn't sound appealing so instead we met for dinner, had a great visit and than left the kids :-) Darryl and I are enjoying some time, just the two of us, for a few days before doing some things with the kids. Today, we lounged at home before heading into Grand Rapids. We ate at the Beltline Bar and seriously got the best Mexican food ever! Than we each went to stores we enjoy - Darryl dropped me off at Hobby Lobby while he went to the Guitar store :-) I Love Hobby Lobby LOL We also did some "fake" Christmas shopping. What is "Fake" shopping - we went to Toys R Us and walked through all the toy aisles taking pictures of things we like for the kids. Now, we can take those items, push them against our budget, and pick out our favorites. There isn't a chance for he and I to go shopping without the kids again before Christmas so this way, we could both pick things out and one of us can stop and pick up the toys as the budget allows!!! We went to see a movie - it was FANTASTIC! (Inception - wow, that's all I can say) And now are enjoying pie at Grand Traverse Pie Company. YEAH! What a great day - so much to be thankful for :-)
I don't post these types of posts often but it is fun to actually write about what's going on the life of the Koll's :-)
